Wielding a Red Sword Read online

  So they walked away from the frozen river, and Ligeia carried the snake along, warming it.

  The souls of this region resembled snow monsters as they struggled to carry baskets of snow through the drifts. Obviously they had been assigned this work for the same reason the others had to slop muck endlessly—pointless misery. The demons in charge were in a high tower, evidently warmed by a stove, because smoke issued from its chimney. That meant that the workers were not closely supervised—but it seemed the demons kept track of the deliveries, for as Mym watched, a snow-bomb was lofted from an automatic catapult. It arched through the air and landed on a laggard worker, burying him in snow.

  Another worker saw the two of them. "New recruits?" he asked. "Here, I've got an extra coat for the lady." He paused to strip his outer layer, a furred jacket, battered but good.

  "But you need that yourself!" Ligeia protested.

  "Not as much as you do," the man said, handed her the jacket, and resumed his plodding.

  It was a help, for now she was able to walk alone. Mym located the leader and matched his step, speaking briefly to him while Ligeia walked some distance behind. Then Mym phased in with the man, and in a moment the understanding was complete; the man would spread the word, and these people would cooperate. Mym disengaged, walked along for another minute, then broke away, trusting that neither the supervising demon nor the snake Ligeia carried had comprehended the true nature of his contact.

  They returned to the canoe. "They don't seem like bad people," Mym remarked as they resumed their skid along the ice.

  "They really aren't," she agreed. "Of course I am bringing you to the best groups, the ones who were only marginally evil to begin with and who have probably expiated enough of their sin to qualify for Heaven, except that Satan never does let anyone go, regardless. I understand some of the damned souls in other regions arc reallv bad."

  "That man gave you his coat," Mym persisted. "Shouldn't that count on his balance card, a good deed?"

  "It should," she agreed. "But he didn't do it for that, because they all know Satan won't let them go anyway."

  "Which is the truest positive act—sacrifice without hope of reward."

  "I wish we could help these people, somehow," she said.

  "If we find our avenue of escape, some of them may use it too," he reminded her.

  She now understood exactly what he had in mind. "Yes."

  The snake, recovered from its lethargy of cold, perked up. It was now coiled about one of Ligeia's legs, warmed by her body without interfering with her use of the paddle. Mym wondered how it reported to Satan, whether it had to make periodic check-ins, or whether it was telepathic. Probably the former; the latter would have betrayed them already, for it would have read their minds and not have to listen to their words. Perhaps it was a variety of demon that could vaporize at will, zip away to report, and return while they were sleeping. That was what Mym was counting on.

  The Kokytus debouched into a broad and quiet river, and the ice gave way to polluted water. This was easier to canoe through, but unpleasant to see and smell. "Which one is this?"

  "The Acheron," she replied, removing her jacket, as the air had wanned. "River of Sorrows."

  "That figures," he said. "The clear, clean spring water is forgetful. The frozen stream is lamenting. And the polluted one has sorrows."

  "What greater sorrow is there than the destruction of what once was lovely?" she asked.

  He sighed agreement. "Yet the mortals are doing their best to make all their rivers like this."

  "The mortal world is going to Hell. Anybody can see that, from this vantage. But it's sad."

  "If only they would understand and change course!" he said. "Maybe if mortal people could only see Hell or hear about how it really is, before..."

  "But, every mortal person has to die before seeing Hell, and then it's too late."

  That was the crux of the problem. It meant that Satan stood a fair chance to prevail, because of the ignorance of mortals.

  The river narrowed and the current accelerated. "I hope there aren't rapids!" Mym muttered.

  "I don't think there are, but—"

  The river forked. "Which way do we go?" Mym asked.

  "I don't know. They probably rejoin after a bit, so maybe it doesn't matter."

  Mym steered the canoe into the left channel, which seemed to be the more navigable of the two. All went well—until they came up against a fallen tree. It hung slantwise over the water, blocking progress.

  "We can duck under it," Mym said.

  They coasted up to it, and both squeezed down low, and they passed under the trunk. But as they did, several objects dropped from it into the canoe. Mym thought they were bits of bark, but then he saw them scuttling. They were little crablike things, with pincers. They waved little antennae in the air, then headed purposefully for the nearest delicacy, Ligeia.

  "Trouble," Mym said. "Get your legs up!"

  She looked back—and screamed. She tried to get her legs up, but got a foot caught under the seat. The first crab reached that foot and took an experimental pinch. Ligeia screamed again.

  Mym took his paddle and pounded at the crabs with it. Then he jumped—one had pinched him on the ankle. It hurt terribly.

  Then the canoe ran up against a submerged log and stalled.

  First things first. Mym got to work cleaning out the crabs. He discovered that he could stun them momentarily with a blow, then use the blade of the paddle to lift them up and dump them out. One by one he pursued them, until all were gone.

  Next, he considered their external predicament. He could not see the log, but he could not move the canoe off it. "I'll have to get out and lift it off," he said.

  "No, no, don't do that!" Ligeia protested. "Any part that touches this water—the sorrows—"

  He didn't need to have sorrows in his feet, legs, and however far up the water extended when he stood in it. Hell could make things uncomfortably literal. He looked for some other way.

  "Oh, no!" Ligeia said.

  Mym looked. There in the water was an alligator. It looked hungry.

  Desperately, he paddled, trying to boost the canoe off the hang-up, but all he succeeded in doing was to shove his end around until the canoe was sideways, being pushed by the current but not getting anywhere.

  That gave him a notion. He continued paddling, with a watchful eye on the alligator, until his end swung the rest of the way around. The canoe was now backwards, facing upstream, still stuck. But Mym's end was beyond the barrier. "Come back here with me, and we can budge it," he called.

  Ligeia moved back. As her end lightened, they were at last able to shove off the log, just as the alligator closed in. They took off backward, unable to turn around. So Mym stroked backward while Ligeia moved back to position. The alligator watched, disgusted, but did not pursue.

  After that, they knew how to get over the submerged logs. They struggled on to the next landing and got out. This time, again, Ligeia remained in the canoe with the snake, letting Mym handle his business alone.

  Shortly after they resumed their journey, the river widened and joined a truly horrendous tributary. The water of the other river smelled of oil, and small blue flames played across its surface.

  Ligeia pointed to it. "The River Phlegethon," she said.

  Mym was appalled. "You mean we have to go up that?"

  She nodded. "The next good group..."

  So they stroked up the River of Fire. Mym could feel the heat of the flame on it; when his energetic paddling splashed droplets of water into the canoe, they ignited as they landed. Had the canoe been of wood or bark, it would soon have been ablaze! As it was, it grew hot, and the snake crawled up to the seat beside Ligeia to avoid the discomfort of the metal hull.

  Then they came to rapids, and the vapor thrown up by the spuming liquid was burning, making a curtain of fire extending several meters above the surface. "No way we can go through that," Mym said. "We'll have to portage."


  They guided the craft to the side, found a reasonably firm section of the bank, and got out. Then they hauled the canoe out and picked up each end. It was heavy and clumsy, seeming much more so than it had when they first put it into the water. This was an indication of how they were tiring.

  Then their feet started sinking down into the marshy ground. Each time Mym took a step, there was a sucking sound, and muck coated his boots, and an odor reminiscent of overripe eggs wafted up. Ligeia, wearing only delicate slippers, was worse off.

  "Maybe I can haul it!" Mym exclaimed. He set down his end, slogged to the front, took hold, and hauled. The canoe moved, reluctantly. He stepped forward and hauled again. It was feasible. This allowed Ligeia to pick her way more carefully, sparing her slippers and feet further degradation.

  But the marsh got worse. It started making sucking sounds of its own, and holes appeared that were not caused by feet. They looked like pursed mouths. Mym accidentally put a foot in one; it sank in halfway to his knee, and the mouth-hole closed about it and hung on.

  He wrenched, but the boot remained captive and he was in danger of removing his foot without the boot. Meanwhile there was a kind of hissing and steaming in the hole, as if digestive juices were being squirted about. So he reached with difficulty into the canoe, fetched out a paddle, and used it to jam into the hole and wedge out his boot. It was awkward, clumsy business, but at last he got it free, somewhat degraded on the outside.

  He resumed the hauling, now being more careful where he set his feet. His breath was short as he labored, and he was sweating, but he made progress. Again he wondered idly about the physiological effects here in the spirit realm; had he not known where he was, he would have had no way to tell that he was not in the mortal realm. To a spirit, the spirit world seemed just as tangible as the physical world did to a mortal.

  They came in above the fire-rapids, launched the canoe, and paddled on upstream. In due course they reached the fourth encampment and made the connection. Then all they had to do was proceed on back down the River of Fire.

  Dusk was at hand as they reached the foul Acheron again; instead of entering it, they landed the canoe and made camp at the fringe of the fire zone. There was nothing to drink except some of the firewater, and nothing to eat except tubers they were able to scrounge from the scorched soil. But they stuck the tubers on the ends of long sticks and toasted them at the fire on the river; the tubers were edible if not enjoyable. The firewater did not properly slacken their thirst, but it soon caused them to cease to worry about the matter. They talked, laughed, rolled together, and decided it was time to get serious about sex... and discovered they could not. The firewater had not only inflamed their desire, it had made one or the other of them impotent. Ligeia found that hilarious, but Mym suspected that in the morning, when he was sober, he would not be laughing. Unrequited lust—trust Hell to be the place for that sort of experience!

  Indeed, when the morning came, he was not laughing. His body ached from the exertions of the prior day, and his head felt as if he had soaked it overnight in the stench water of the Acheron. Ligeia seemed little better off; her beauty was now overlaid by grime and fatigue. "Oh, my clothing!" she fussed. "No one would take me for a princess now!"

  "True," Mym muttered. "They would take you for a woman."

  She glanced at him. "Are you making fun of me?"

  "No. I never really cared for princesses, but I have known some fine women." Actually that was a confusion, perhaps spawned by his hangover. He did care for princesses, and needed one to share his life. But at the moment he really craved a woman of the nature of Orb, who had brought him up when he had been low and loved him without questioning his nature. Ligeia was both princess and woman—but the woman aspect was becoming more important to him.

  "Oh." She considered for a moment. "But don't you prefer pretty women?"

  "Second only to caring ones."

  "You are making fun of me!"

  "Come read my mind." He took her hand and drew her in to him. She came, making only token resistance. He phased in to her—and discovered a kind of tinder that ignited explosively as it encountered the developing flame of his emotion. There was a dialogue, occurring in an instant; parsed into its components it might have been rendered like this:

  "But I'm not ready to love!" she protested.

  "You don't need to," he responded. "I'm on the rebound."

  "This sort of thing is supposed to take time!"

  "We'll give it time."

  "Too late! I'm already raging with desire!"

  "That's my desire!"

  "Not any more!"

  They disengaged and looked at each other. "I'm not sure we should have done that," Mym said.

  "I'm not sure we should be doing this," she replied.

  "Be doing what?"

  "What we couldn't do last night." She began removing her clothing.

  Mym realized that they had no secrets from each other. It did make sense to complete what they had started in their minds. On the prior night it would have been largely wasted in their besotted state, but now they could appreciate it to its full extent with their minds clear.

  He removed his own clothing. "Afterwards, we can wash up in firewater," he remarked.

  That set her off again, laughing. Her whole body jiggled with her mirth.

  There was a sound from the river. Mym looked up—and saw a great fiery shape emerging from the water. "What's that?" he asked, alarmed.

  Ligeia looked. "The Fireman!" she shrieked.

  "The what?"

  "The denizen of the River of Fire! I thought he was a myth! We must flee!"

  "I'll fight him!" Mym said, getting to his feet.

  "You can't!" she protested. "He burns everything!"

  Mym faced the emerging monster and reached for the Red Sword. But of course the Sword was gone, along with the rest of his clothing. Gone? He had never brought it into Hell! He had no weapon.

  The Fireman pointed at a small tree. A jet of flame came from his hand, and the tree burst into fire. The Fireman pointed at the river; the jet touched it, and the water boiled into a cloud of vapor. The Fireman pointed at Mym.

  Mym snatched up his cloak and dodged to the side. The ground where he had been standing jumped as if struck by a bomb, and smoke roiled up.

  "Flee!" Ligeia cried, terrified.

  Mym concluded that this was good advice. He grabbed her hand and fled.

  They ran to the shore of the Acheron, and the Fireman did not pursue them there. He hovered for a moment where they had camped, then marched back into the Phlegethon.

  When they returned to their campsite, they found only slag and ashes. Their clothing and the canoe had been destroyed. The only other survivor was the snake.

  They stood there. "Maybe we shouldn't have," Ligeia said.

  "We didn't." Mym reminded her.

  "Well, we were going to."

  But now the mood was gone. It would have to wait for another time.

  They resumed their trip, walking carefully in their bare feet. Fortunately, Ligeia said, their next and final stop was not far ahead. They proceeded to the juncture of the rivers and walked along the bank of the Acheron; in an hour or so came to the merger with the greatest of all Hell's rivers, the Styx. It was so vast as to seem like an ocean in itself, and its waters were inky black and seemed deep beyond imagination. Out across its somber surface, near the horizon, strange waves developed, as if some massive and sinister creature swam below. Mym would not have wanted to take a canoe out there!

  In another hour they reached the encampment of the final group. There were women here—indeed, it seemed to be an Amazon community—and they looked at Mym appraisingly, as if judging whether his flesh would be better for soup or for pot roast. But Ligeia spoke up, telling them that Mym was Mars, the Incarnation of War, and needed to meet with their leader privately. They were impressed, for they were warlike women, and soon Mym was closeted with the head Amazon. He explained in a few words, then phas
ed in with her.

  "Lovely!" she exclaimed as they disengaged. "You may count on us."

  The Amazons provided them with clothing and a tent to stay in and fed them well. "We shall coordinate the signals," their leader assured Mym. "Give us a day, while you rest."

  Then Mym and Ligeia retired to their tent, at last having the chance to do what they wished without intrusion—and found themselves both so tired that they simply flopped on the fragrant straw and slept.

  Chapter 16 - REVOLT

  In the morning things were ready. Mym and Ligeia and the snake emerged from the tent to find the Amazons in full combat dress. Each stood tall and proud with her bow and quiver of arrows, her left breast full and perfectly molded, her right breast absent. The right one was, of course, burned off in childhood, so that it never developed and thus could never interfere with the drawing of the bowstring. "But we have two problems," Diana, the Amazon leader, said. "First, we lack efficient means of travel. Only the demons can use the front routes, and the back routes, as you know, are slow and treacherous. Since it is necessary for you to be at all the key sites—"

  "What is the second problem?" Mym asked.

  "There is a demon spy among us."

  "Don't hurt the snake!" Ligeia exclaimed. "It has done us no harm!"

  "Except to report of your whereabouts every night," Diana said.

  "We knew its mission," Mym said. "We saw to it that it did not know our actual plan."

  "Still, now that plan must be revealed, and surprise is of the essence. That demon must be abolished."

  "It's not a demon, it's a snake," Ligeia protested. "The soul of an animal."

  "How do you know?"

  "It got cold. A demon would not have been affected."

  Mym glanced at the snake, startled. It was true; demons had no vulnerability to extremes of temperature, as they had to function in all the climes that made souls suffer. Yet, that being the case—

  "It must still be a spy," Diana said. "We must hack it to pieces, so that it can not report on our activity."